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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24655720">the brave at heart</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/maraudeer/pseuds/maraudeer'>maraudeer</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>:), I’m leaving the last section of the story as surprise, Teddy is biracial and nonbinary, Trans Characters, Trans Women Are Women, Trans!victoire, drag queen Charlie Weasley, harry potter is a good dad</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 03:54:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,400</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24655720</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/maraudeer/pseuds/maraudeer</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The story starts, as many stories at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry do, with Teddy Lupin. </p><p>OR </p><p>Hogwarts and some of its trans and gender nonconforming students.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Teddy Lupin/Victoire Weasley</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Trans in the Wizarding World</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the brave at heart</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Happy pride month! This is my love letter to my TGNC readers, fellow HP fans, and siblings.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The story starts, as many stories at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry do, with Teddy Lupin. </p><p>It’s September first, and he spends the whole ride on the Hogwarts Express shifting his hair and face, one way and another. He turns his usual short, kinky hair into a brilliant aqua. He tells the other first years that his hair will tell them what house they’ll be in.</p><p>So he spends the next hour changing it from crimson red to a bold blue to a daisy yellow to a forest green. He’s just guessing the colors and the people, but it’s fun and it makes them laugh and he’ll keep changing if it makes them happy. </p><p>He has friends, you see, right from the start. He hopes he’s sorted with some of them. </p><p>He shifts so he has the same intensely curly hair as the girl beside him, and they all laugh, except he can’t figure out why this is funny—that’s just the hair he’s settled on for the moment.</p><p>He’s never tried the long hair before. </p><p>But he likes it. </p><p>When they get off the train, he’s still got his long, curly hair—all dark, sort of like Grandma’s. He waves at Hagrid, who does a double take, but ends up chuckling. </p><p>“Another one of your looks, eh, Teddy?”</p><p>Teddy nods. </p><p>They all climb into these tiny boats and as they reach the docks on the other side, a boy from his compartment on the train—the only other one with the same dark complexion as Teddy—scoops up a flower near the tangle of water weeds in the shallow end. </p><p>He presents it to Teddy. It’s a wild, wonderful thing, bursting with pink at the center and fading into a watery, perfect purple. He’s never seen something so lovely.</p><p>Without any kind hesitation the boy says, “I’m Eliot. We should be friends.”</p><p>Teddy takes the flower from his hand and tucks it behind his ear. </p><p>“Okay,” he says. “I’m Teddy.”</p><p>Those other kids were Teddy’s first friends, but Eliot is his first real, real friend.</p><p>It makes it easier when he walks into the grand hall and he’s sorted into Hufflepuff—his mom’s house. And the kids at the table are looking at him like they can’t quite figure him out. </p><p>Eliot’s sorted into Hufflepuff, too. It’s easier after that.</p><p>After the feast, an intimidating looking prefect leads them to the Hufflepuff dormitory. Teddy immediately falls in love. It’s cozy with soft yellows and earthy greens. There’s a giant couch with cushions that are so squish Eliot nearly disappears into them when he hops onto it. </p><p>Teddy laughs.</p><p>The prefect directs the first year boys in one direction and the first year girls in the other direction. Teddy follows Eliot, but the prefect says, “woah, woah, woah, shouldn’t you be over there.”</p><p>He points to the other end of the room where the girls are making their way up a set of stairs.</p><p>Teddy shrugs, “I dunno.”</p><p>“Well, you certainly can’t sleep with the boys.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>Teddy wants to say ‘I am a boy,’ but that makes him feel squirmy.</p><p>“Because you’re a girl.”</p><p>“No, I’m not.”</p><p>“Well, then what are you?”</p><p>“I’m a metamorphmagus.”</p><p>Teddy lets his hair grow short and the curls grow tighter. </p><p>Eliot still hasn’t left Teddy’s side, and he says with all the fury of an eleven year old, “Leave Teddy alone.”</p><p>Another prefect comes up and asks what’s wrong. The first prefect sighs, “Get Professor Sprout, please.”</p><p>Professor Sprout, their head of house, smiles cheerily when she arrives in the common room and asks what could be wrong.</p><p>“We don’t know where he should sleep.”</p><p>They explain the situation.</p><p>“Well,” Professor Sprout asks. “Where do you want to sleep?”</p><p>Teddy shrugs. He didn’t want to choose, but he also didn’t feel like he should tell them that.</p><p>“Well then,” Professor Sprout says. “It’s getting late. Let’s have a first year slumber party down here, and we’ll sort it all out in the morning.”</p><p>She squeezes his shoulder, and Teddy is reminded of his godfather Harry doing the same thing right before he boarded the Hogwarts Express. He feels better, somehow.</p><p>So the first year boys and girls collect their fluffy comforters and pillows and spread out in the common room. Teddy and Eliot build an epic fort using the giant couch—which easily holds both of them—and fall asleep to whispers and hushed laughter from a few students near the fireplace. </p><p>In the morning, he keeps his short hair but makes it a whimsical lilac and Professor Sprout tells him he can sleep wherever he wants. “We’ll figure it out either way.”</p><p>Teddy doesn’t choose a dormitory, really, he just chooses Eliot, his first real friend at Hogwarts.</p><p>…</p><p>This, of course, is not actually where the story starts. </p><p>It starts much earlier with a boy named Charlie Weasley and a stow-away pair of women’s dress robes. </p><p>It’s not like he wants to wear it all the time. It’s not like he even ever has. Not with six brothers, parents, and a sister always two feet away at the Burrow. It’s just something he tucked away from Molly’s closet when he was packing his trunk for school. </p><p>He thought he might be able to find some time to just see what it would be like while at Hogwarts. </p><p>But then there were roommates—loud brash boys who always distracted Charlie from his secret with wrestling matches and quidditch practice and sneaking out to the Forbidden Forest to try to find thestrals just by whistling. None of them could see them and were largely unsuccessful, but it was still fun—breaking the rules.</p><p>“It’s not like I want to wear it all the time,” he repeats to Bill when he comes looking for him one early Sunday evening when all of Charlie’s roommates have already gone down to dinner and sees him in it. “I mean, come on, it’s not practical if I’m going to be working with dragons one day, but I just wanted to see.”</p><p>His face matches the bright red of the dress, and he can’t get it to stop. He feels like shouting ‘I wasn’t doing anything wrong!’ but he thinks based on Bill’s careful expression that he doesn’t need to say it.</p><p>Bill knows.</p><p>“Okay,” he says. “I have an idea.”</p><p>Charlie changes into his school clothes, and Bill takes the dress, tucking it under his arm. They go to the seventh floor and stop by a bare wall. </p><p>“Think about what you want,” Bill says. </p><p>He starts walking, so Charlie walks, too.</p><p>What does he want, exactly? He wants to wear this dress, and he sort of does want people to see him in it, eventually. He wants to dance. And maybe sing. And he wants it to be light and easy, the same way it feels to fly on his broom. </p><p>He wants a lot of things, and Hogwarts seems to listen. </p><p>A door to a room opens up to them and the brothers step through it. On one end is a giant stage, a light system, and sound system. A Weird Sisters song is playing—one of their songs that is light and airy, sort of ethereal, sort of like a siren’s call. </p><p>But the wardrobe, the vanity. It catches Charlie’s eye at once. </p><p>They don’t waste anytime fitting Charlie into his dress and finding a scarf to wrap around his arms so that when he stretches them out it makes him sort of look like—</p><p>“A dragon.”</p><p>It makes Bill smile.</p><p>It takes off from there. A few other kids join. And then they start dancing to the music, dresses swaying, makeup bold and stunning and honest in the most exaggerated way possible.</p><p>Dragon Club meets every other Friday night—but, of course, it isn’t about dragons at all—hosted by Charlie—or, Miss. DRAGon as she likes to be referred to on these nights. </p><p>It isn’t a large group, but it is a fun group.</p><p>Bill brings Leo sometimes. The dark boy with a wicked smile, who stands in between Bill’s legs and tugs on his rapidly growing hair and whispers things into his ear. And Bill—cool Bill, the one who gave Charlie this place in the first place—seems almost flustered. </p><p>It makes Charlie laugh as he takes to the stage and sings a phenomenally terrible Celestina Warbeck song. </p><p>This is his secret. And their secret. And their nights tucked away in a part of the castle that is always safe. And, honestly, that makes it not feel like a secret at all. </p><p>…</p><p>Perhaps it really starts with a little Hogwarts student named Victoire.</p><p>“Wow,” Teddy Lupin, a year older than her, says to her on the train to Hogwarts her first year. “It’s gotten so long.”</p><p>He reaches out and touches his delicate fingers to her pale blonde hair. It cascades around her shoulders and down her back. Even at eleven, Victoire knows she is very beautiful.</p><p>She just needs to stop her leg from jiggling. </p><p>“I’m going to get kicked out,” Victoire says because she can’t help it. “The sorting hat is going to find out and they’re going to kick me out.”</p><p>“Victoire,” Teddy says. “Professor McGonagall already knows.”</p><p>She is just so worried that someone will find out that this long hair is very new. That someone is going to tell her that she should be dressed in the ugly slacks Teddy is wearing and not her pleated skirt. </p><p>Maman and Papa said it would be fine, but…</p><p>McGonagall calls her by the right name and the sorting hat puts her in Gryffindor and she grins when Teddy shoots her a thumbs up and his hair turns into a bright red. </p><p>She thinks the worst has passed, and she enjoys the rest of the feast without note. Until at dessert when she hears two third years whispering about how the girls dormitory kicks out boys, and Victoire freezes.</p><p>“Excuse me, did you just say they kick out boys?”</p><p>“Yeah, but it’s actually sort of fun. There’s a huge slide.”</p><p>Victoire feels her stomach drop. </p><p>She finds Teddy in the bustle of everyone getting up to go to their dorms and tells him.</p><p>“I don’t understand the issue,” Teddy tells her. “No boys are going to go up to the girls dormitory.”</p><p>Victoire feels a little like crying. “So you think I shouldn’t even try?”</p><p>“No, I’m saying it’s not going to stop you,” Teddy says, determined and confident. “You know what your Auntie Ginny always says—”</p><p>“Anything is possible if you’ve got enough nerve,” Victoire says. And Teddy repeats it back to her. </p><p>Sometimes, Teddy Lupin is the most wonderful person Victoire knows. </p><p>He takes her hand and says to his best friend Eliot, “Come on, we’ve gotta make a stop first.”</p><p>Victoire doesn’t know Eliot, but she’s heard plenty of stories about him from Teddy. He has a kind smile, and he takes Victoire’s other hand. </p><p>They lead her to the Gryffindor common room, her prefect already long gone. A fourth year gives them the password and Victoire, accompanied by two Hufflepuff second years, enters. </p><p>Eliot says to the kids by the fire in a very bold voice considering this is not his common room, “Where is the girls dormitory?”</p><p>They point to a set of stairs. </p><p>Teddy and Eliot start tugging her that way. </p><p>Victoire feels a little like running away, but then she remembers that she’s a Gryffindor like her father. Her mother was a Triwizard Tournament school champion. She’ll make her own magic if this school’s magic fails her. </p><p>“Wait,” she says. They stop, looking back at her. </p><p>She let’s go of their hands and hugs Teddy around his middle. She whispers thank you into his shoulder. </p><p>“I’ve got this,” she says, sizing up the stairs. </p><p>And, reader, she does. </p><p>…</p><p>The story could go on, of course. Hogwarts knows all their names, but it is best to end this particular story in the way these stories are wont to do, which is at King’s Cross Station with a wizard named Harry Potter. </p><p>“Mom, Dad!” James hurries over to his parents and two little sisters. “Guess who I just saw kissing further down the train station?”</p><p>Ginny smiles, “Who?”</p><p>“Teddy and Victoire.”</p><p>“Our Teddy?” Harry asks. </p><p>“Our Victoire?” Ginny echoes.</p><p>James grins, “Yeah, can you believe it?”</p><p>“Yes, actually,” Ginny says. “Teddy has had a crush on Victoire for ages.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Harry says, squeezing Ginny’s shoulder. “Their crush on Victoire was almost as bad as your crush on me, eh?”</p><p>Ginny rolls her eyes. She ignores Harry and says to James, “Where are they anyway? We should say hello.”</p><p>Harry feels a tug on his elbow. It’s Molly, already dressed in her new robes. </p><p>“Dad,” she says, and Harry can hear just how nervous she is for her first year although she’s tried to hide it all morning.</p><p>“What is it, baby?”</p><p>“James keeps teasing me about being put in Slytherin. What if I’m not brave enough to be in Gryffindor?”</p><p>Harry remembers his kids’ argument from earlier in the car. He crouches down, so he’s closer to her level. “Molly Tonks Potter, you named yourself after two of the bravest women I have ever known, and you did it because you believe in being honest with yourself and with those around you.”</p><p>Harry remembers the day she came tiptoeing down to the kitchen and told them that if it was alright with him and Ginny, she’d really feel more comfortable going by Molly instead of Albus Severus. </p><p>Him and Ginny had burst into tears as soon as she left the kitchen with their blessing. Their wonderful child, their brave, brave girl. </p><p>“Never doubt that you’re brave,” Harry says and watches as the words sink in. </p><p>“But what if I’m sorted into Slytherin anyway?”</p><p>“Then they’ll have gained a brilliant witch,” she still doesn’t seem satisfied, so Harry adds, “Besides if you’re really worried about it, the sorting hat listens to what you want.”</p><p>“Really?”</p><p>“It did with me.”</p><p>Molly smiles right as the train whistle blows. She looks over at the Hogwarts Express. “Okay, I’ve gotta go.”</p><p>Harry opens his arms and she practically hurls herself into them. “Thanks, Dad.”</p><p>“I love you, Molly,” Harry says. </p><p>Molly Tonks Potter has never doubted it.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I can only do so much as a cis writer, but I hope this fic meets you with warmth and safety. </p><p>Are you a trans fic writer? Please feel free to let me know in the comments! I would love to give kudos, leave comments, and share your work!   </p><p>Don’t let the transphobic author get you down.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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